AS IN most wars, the first casualty is the truth and that couldn’t be, well, closer to the truth than in the crisis engulfing the Ukraine and specifically its autonomous state of Crimea.

Reportage is very much along the lines of the East-West axis of the super powers that are embroiled in the geopolitical tug of war crisis.

And both sides have sought to use the media and promulgate their statements and in some cases complete falsehoods to their advantage to win favour from Allies or where in counts domestically with the voters.

Riot Policemen line up to prevent clashes between pro-Russian supporters and pro-UkrainiaSource:AFP

In Russia, the governor of the Belgorod region and the Speaker of the upper house caused something of a stir when they told Russian national news channel Rossiya-24 that thousands of refugees were surging across the border to escape the crisis. Indeed the speaker put a figure of 140,000 desperates were fleeing while another Russian media outlet claimed it was closer to 675,000. That sent the media fleeing to witness the Syria-esque escape across the border. Alas on the border at Belgorod there was nothing, no-one and bemused border control guards said it had been like that “for days”.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaks during his meeting with Kazakh president NursultSource:AFP

While Russian media have been providing a narrative to support a Putin invasion of Ukraine, the Ukraine media have been in a frenzy on reports of columns of tanks barrelling over the border supported by tens of thousands of soldiers. Not quite.

Actions that may have been otherwise innocent before take on a sinister motive now. Putin’s press conference was a ramble according to Western press, an erudite delivery of a man in control according to the east.

Troops under Russian command assemble before getting into trucks near the Ukrainian militSource:Getty Images

Yesterday, media chiefs of Russia and Ukraine exchanged calls for “unbiased coverage” of the crisis.

“We all have no right to fuel hostility between the brotherly people of Ukraine and Russia or to air information that lacks proof or distorts reality,” reads the statement from Ukraine media chiefs addressed to the heads of Russia’s main broadcasters, Channel One, VGTRK and NTV. Their response: “As far as objectiveness and responsibility is concerned, we would like to make the same call to you.”

A Russian soldier guards a Soviet-made anti-aircraft missile launchers at a Ukrainian milSource:AP

“Let’s be objective and responsible, let’s weigh our words and control our emotions and let’s do it together, not separately as we have been doing of late.”

Indeed the media war is in no small way fuelling passions for both sides. On the street in Crimea, the general populace genuinely believe they are about to be invaded by right wing extremists streaming down the MO5 freeway from Kiev. In Kiev they believe columns of Russian troops are about to invade from the east having already done so from the south. Pro-Russians in Ukraine also believe this to be a phony war created by the West and namely the United States and the EU and even the shootings in the capital were staged. The interim government was of course a plant. The only things both sides seem to agree on is that ousted Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych was corrupt and had to go, it’s just what happens next is perhaps something that no-one can believe.